


Reasons Not To Lie Down And Die

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, First Meetings, Meet-Cute, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28114731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: That’s when she notices what he has in his lap: a whole entire cat, sprawled across his legs like they’re its rightful throne. The man’s hands are buried in its fur, and Georgie finds herself smirking at the man just a bit as she realizes that she’s found the person who sneaks away from the party to go and cuddle the house pet instead. There’s always one. Hell, she’s done that herself more than once.“I was just-- I got lost! While looking for the bathroom,” he says all in a defensive rush. He literally looks off to the side like a shamefaced kid, a guilty look flashing over his face as he, almost absolutely for one hundred percent of a fact, lies to her.“I see,” she says. “Do you want for me to show you where it is?”“N-- no, no thank you. That’s alright. I’ll manage on my own.”“Okay,” she says.She stands there. He stays crouched there on the floor, clearly trying not to fidget. She doesn’t make any move to leave. Neither does he. He looks at her, looking so uncomfortable that it almost resembles pain.“... I don’t want to move her,” he finally admits sheepishly. One of his hands smooths over the cat in his lap, and she gives an approving purr.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 45
Kudos: 175
Collections: Rusty Quill Secret Santa 2020





	Reasons Not To Lie Down And Die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aunt_zelda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/gifts).



Georgie’s a history major, because she’s always thought that reading about the weird things that have happened in the past is really interesting. She reminds herself of that, over and over again. She _ likes _ history. 

She’s been trying to read the same paragraph about the bubonic plague for about ten minutes now. It’s not that she’s bored or distracted. She’s just… numb. Blank. She can’t for the life of her think of a single reason to read another sentence, or why she should care about any of these words. 

She knows that that’s dangerous. It doesn’t scare her, which makes it harder to treat the situation with the urgency it requires. She can’t just let herself sit here like a plant, a statue, breathing and blinking and staring dully at the textbook on her desk. 

Well, she could, of course. And there’s no reason for her not to do it, really. No matter what she does in the here and now, or ever, it won’t change the fact of what’s coming. She won’t be able to stop or hide from it. So why even bother-- 

She closes the textbook. Just trying to push through it isn’t working, this time. She finds herself just blinking at her wall for a moment, before she makes herself stand up. Now that she’s finally made a decision, done something, she needs to stay in motion. If she can just keep her momentum going, maybe she can eventually outrun the apathy trying to drown her. At least for a while. 

Not for forever though. There’s no such thing as forever. 

She grabs her jacket, pulls on some boots, and leaves her dorm room. She doesn’t know where she’s going or what she’s going to do, she just knows that if she stays in her quiet room right now that she’s just going to lay there like a coma patient for the rest of the night. And that would be bad because-- because-- 

Georgie doesn’t slow down her walking as she digs through her jacket for the piece of folded paper she knows is there. She’s put it in all of her jackets, all of her trousers, all of her bags, just so that she’s sure that she’ll have it within arms reach at any moment, no matter what she’s wearing. She finds it, unfolds the worn edges of it and makes herself read it, even though she knows the words by heart, even though she’s the one who wrote them. It had taken her a lot of work, too. Real effort. 

REASONS NOT TO LIE DOWN AND DIE, she’s written down in blocky letters at the top of the list. Underneath that there’s ten different points. She’d decided on coming up with ten since it was a neat, round number. It had been  _ really fucking hard _ . It seems unreasonable to her, that anyone could need that many excuses to stay alive. But she needs to be stern with herself now. She needs to follow her new rules. 

The first reason hadn’t taken too long to come up with, and is fairly solid, reasonable. 1. MUM WOULD BE SAD. 

A good start. It had been easy to come up with, considering how present she’s been ever since-- everything. Ever since she had to take care of her adult daughter’s catatonic body for several months. She still calls more than she used to. Georgie tells herself that being annoyed by that is unreasonable, unfair. She’s just worried. 

After that though, it had quickly devolved into a process that felt a lot like pulling teeth. Long, laborious, painful. 5. I DON’T WANT TO DIE BEFORE I GET TO OWN A CAT THAT’LL EAT MY CORPSE. 7. THINK ABOUT THE POOR SODS THAT ARE GOING TO HAVE TO CLEAN UP MY BODY. By the end, the last point that she could come up with was weak, fickle, silly. 10. I HAVEN’T CAUGHT UP ON DOCTOR WHO YET. 

She still hasn’t caught up on Doctor Who yet. If she does, she’s going to have to come up with a new tenth point. That sounds  _ frustrating.  _

She makes herself read through the list, and really _ think _ about every single one. It feels a bit like she’s trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Trying to wring a single drop of emotion out of herself. She knows she can do it, she’s capable of it. If she weren’t, she wouldn’t be up and walking right now. She just _ feels _ numb, but it’s all down there, deep down. It’s still there. And it’s not always like this either. It waxes and wanes like the moon, leaving her almost feeling like a normal person one day, and something pretending to be one the next. She just has to wait this out, and she’ll be okay again. 

As okay as she ever gets nowadays, anyways. 

She’s going over point number six (WHAT IF MY MUM FINDS MY SEX TOYS WHILE CLEANING MY THINGS) when she bumps into someone. She almost drops her list. She looks up, blinking, to see a vaguely familiar face in makeup. 

“Oh, shit, sorry!” the girl says, and breaks out into a little fit of giggles that immediately tells Georgie that she’s  _ very _ tipsy, at the very least. She waves her phone in the air, about half a dozen charms swinging with the motion. “Looking at my phone, myyy bad. Guess I pre-gamed too hard!” 

“No problem,” she says. And then, “Pre-gaming for what?” 

And that’s how Georgie ends up talking some random girl she’s never really spoken to before into dragging her along to some party being held by someone she’s also never spoken to. It doesn’t take a lot of work. The girl-- she tells Georgie that her name is Trisha, but all her friends just call her Trish!-- clearly wants someone to talk at on her way to the party, and is just buzzed enough to be very, very friendly. 

She’s never liked parties. She used to be too nervous for them, sweaty palmed around a sea of strangers and desperately staying close to whoever she came with. Alex, usually. 

Don’t think about Alex. 

She needs to go to this party. She needs to keep her momentum up, distract herself. Outrun the apathy. Sure, she probably isn’t going to know anyone there, and she can feel the loud, throbbing bass of the music before she even sees the house, and everyone’s most likely going to be drunk and cheering and having a good time. But she has to. She doesn’t know what else to do. 

“Trish!” a trio of girls cry out and soon as Georgie and Trish step foot on the lawn, and they all embrace her in their arms. A tearful reunion. They laugh and kiss each other's cheeks and hug and tell each other how much they’ve missed each other, how good they look, how much fun they’re going to have. Georgie watches it, feeling like there’s several panes of glass between them. They clearly feel everything so easily, and she almost can’t comprehend it, even though she used to be just like that. It’s so _ much,  _ so big and loud and strong and obvious, it feels like it has to be fake. Exaggerated. A parody of emotion. 

She moves on, walking into the house itself. Keep moving. 

The inside of the house is far more crowded than the lawn, the chatter and music and people all packed together into too little space. It’s hot and reeks of beer. She has to slowly edge past people just to keep moving, no one really moving to get out of her way. 

Everyone here is holding a drink, but she’s given herself a rule not to drink. She’s never had any problems with it before, but after giving it some serious consideration, she’s decided that she can’t risk it right now. She’s still working on being a functional person while she’s sober, never mind while she’s drunk and stupid. What if she drinks too much? What if she tries to drive? She’s set a date for herself. In five years, she can carefully consider lifting this rule for herself for a probation run.  _ Only _ in five years. No exceptions. She can’t be trusted with exceptions, yet. Maybe not ever again. 

The old her might have found a cup to hold just to try and blend in, but she doesn’t see the point. She keeps moving. It’s so crowded it feels like she can hardly breathe, everyone crammed in together. Walking up the stairs is an obstacle course, many people using the steps as somewhere to sit and talk or focus on their phones. As soon as she gets to the second floor, it becomes easier to walk. Less people here. Maybe because the drinks and music are downstairs? 

She tries to open the first door she comes across. It’s locked. 

“Fucking occupied!” someone shouts from inside, muffled. The bathroom then, probably. 

She moves on. Next door. Takes a moment to process a bed, two figures, lots of bare skin, and then closes the door before they can shout at her. She moves on, mentally poking at herself to see if she feels any embarrassment at walking in on someone, not even knocking first. If she does, it’s so small that she can’t even notice it while looking for it. 

Next door. Some empty, dark room. She walks inside, closing the door behind her with a soft click. 

What is she doing here? Did she really come all this way just to… what, do exactly what she’d been trying to avoid doing at her dorm room, just now in a different building? She shouldn’t be avoiding people, she shouldn’t be hiding away somewhere quiet and empty. 

She tries to make herself walk back out there. Find someone to talk to. An  _ overpowering _ sense of exhaustion washes over her at the thought. She doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to talk to some giggling, smiling stranger and feel like she has to mimic them, like someone pretending to be human by following their example. 

She recognizes the shape of a bed in the dim light. Ten minutes. She’ll set an alarm for herself, and she will get out of this room in ten minutes, no matter how little of a point she sees in getting up. No exceptions. So long as she never breaks a promise she makes to herself, not a single one, no matter how small and insignificant, they’ll hold as much weight as the laws of physics. 

She walks towards the bed and-- 

She blinks, startled. 

“Um,” a man says. She hadn’t seen him, because he’s been crouched at the floor by the bed, blocked off from her sight by the angle. She can’t see him very well in the dark, but his eyes are wide with panicked guilt, like someone caught red handed. “He--hello.” 

She takes a few steps to the side and flips the light switch on. He flinches, and she takes him in while his guard is down. 

He has dark hair that seems to be at an awkward stage, like he’s decided to try and grow out a short haircut. He’s wearing blue jeans and a plain shirt. It’s the sort of boring, safe outfit someone who doesn’t want to stand out wears. She sort of wants to judge him for going to a party dressed like that, but she just pulled a jacket and some boots on over what she’d been wearing while studying at home, so. She probably looks ridiculous. She’d feel self conscious about it, but that’s a bit beyond her now. That’s the whole problem. 

That’s when she notices what he has in his lap: a whole entire cat, sprawled across his legs like they’re its rightful throne. The man’s hands are buried in its fur, and Georgie finds herself smirking at the man just a bit as she realizes that she’s found the person who sneaks away from the party to go and cuddle the house pet instead. There’s always one. Hell, she’s done that herself more than once. 

“I was just-- I got lost! While looking for the bathroom,” he says all in a defensive rush. He literally looks off to the side like a shamefaced kid, a guilty look flashing over his face as he, almost absolutely for one hundred percent of a fact, lies to her. 

“I see,” she says. “Do you want for me to show you where it is?” 

“N-- no, no thank you. That’s alright. I’ll manage on my own.” 

“Okay,” she says. 

She stands there. He stays crouched there on the floor, clearly trying not to fidget. She doesn’t make any move to leave. Neither does he. He looks at her, looking so uncomfortable that it almost resembles pain. 

“... I don’t want to move her,” he finally admits sheepishly. One of his hands smooths over the cat in his lap, and she gives an approving purr. 

“Fair,” Georgie says, and she crouches down in front of him. She reaches out with her hand, and the cat slits its eyes open like someone having their nap interrupted, and Georgie lets it sniff her hand before she gives it a pet herself. The fur is terribly soft. Georgie sort of wants to steal the cat for herself. That’d be a good reason not to give up, right? To have a cat that relied on her getting up in the morning. But pets aren’t allowed in the on campus dorms. And it’d be unethical or whatever, blah. “Aren’t you a pretty girl?” 

It closes its eyes again, accepting the pat. It sort of reminds her of a sleepy, annoyed grandma. 

“Not a fan of the loud music, huh? Those damned kids these days.” 

“Oh,” the man says. “You-- you like cats?” 

“No one in their right mind wouldn’t,” she says. “What’s your name, pretty?” 

She twists her head to try and get a read on the little metal circle attached to her collar, see if there’s a name engraved there, but it’s hard to see in the light. 

“Hermit,” the man says. 

“Awww,” Georgie says. “What a great name. I’m Georgie, by the way. You?” 

“I’m Jon,” he says, and then a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, amusement flickering in his eyes. “You asked for the cat’s name before you wanted mine.” 

“It’s important to have your priorities straight,” she says, affecting a tone like a haughty governess giving a lecture. The man-- Jon chuckles, and it’s such a  _ soft _ sound, reminding her of-- a crackling fire, a piece of paper being gently crinkled. The cat pushes its head up into Jon’s hand a bit, apparently impatient at briefly not being the centre of attention. Jon and Georgie both immediately fix that with lavishing it with affection for a moment. 

“So,” Georgie eventually says in a silence filled with nothing but the muted throb of bass from a floor away and the purring of Hermit. “Not much of a party guy?” 

“What? I’m not-- I don’t see what I’ve done to earn such an accusation,” he says, drawing himself up. She thinks she likes the way he speaks. It’s so overly formal when he’s not stammering with nervousness, she’d expect to hear ‘I don’t see what I’ve done to earn such an accusation’ from someone hamming it up for a joke, but he’s being  _ painfully _ sincere, she can tell. It’s sort of charming, in a harmlessly quirky kind of way. 

“I found you literally hiding in the room that’s the furthest that you can get away from the party without actually being off the property,” she points out. 

“I wasn’t  _ hiding.”  _

“Okay. I found you crouching behind the bed in the dark then, not making a noise when I opened the door until I’d already spotted you.” 

“That’s--” She watches him open and close his mouth as he desperately tries to come up with a believable lie, and profoundly fails to do so. She grins at him, and his shoulders slump with defeat. “... I was hoping you’d just leave,” he admits. 

“Ooh, ouch,” she says, laying a hand on her chest. “That hurts, Jon.” 

He looks genuinely worried for a second, before he catches sight of her expression, at which point he looks like he can’t decide between being relieved that he hadn’t hurt her feelings or annoyed that he thought he really had for a moment. 

_ Cute, _ Georgie finds herself thinking. 

“Yes, well, I was simply feeling a bit… tired of strangers at the moment. Nothing personal. You’re love-- I mean I’m _ sure  _ you’re lovely.” 

“That means a lot,” she says dryly, but she thinks it again. Cute. He looks so _ embarrassed _ of his little slip. He turns his focus back on Hermit, clearly just avoiding eye contact with her. “So if you’re not much of a party guy, why come to one?” 

“I just… well, I thought, I’m at college, aren’t I? I should give it a try. It’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it? Go to-- to loud parties and have drinks and meet people.” 

“And how’s that going for you?” 

He grimaces. “I’ve never been invited to an event like this before, but I don’t think that I was missing out on much after all. Trying to talk to strangers in an incredibly loud room while trying to drink beer that tastes of  _ piss _ is not all that fun, as it turns out.” 

When she hears his thick RP accent say the word ‘piss’ with all of the disdain that he can muster, which turns out to be a _lot,_ a weird sound happens. It takes her a long moment to realize that the weird sound was her. That the weird sound was a _laugh,_ of all things. 

She lifts a hand to hover a few inches from her mouth, startled by herself. She wants to touch her face, to feel if there’s a smile there-- but Jon’s watching, and she can feel it tugging on her mouth now that she’s paying attention. Is she happy? She hadn’t even noticed. 

Jon is frowning at her like he’s trying to determine if he’s being laughed at or not, uncertain and wary. 

“Parties don’t sound that fun, when you put it like that,” she says. 

“What? When I describe them frankly? I cannot believe that they haven’t been officially declared an unethical method of torture yet,” he says, relaxing ever so slightly. She feels a little pulse of satisfaction at that, like managing to coax an untrusting stray cat towards her. 

Satisfaction. Yes, she’d  _ felt _ that. She’d been resigning herself to feeling numb for the rest of the day, if not the whole week. And now it’s all just… faded away, without her having come up with some brilliant solution or trick. It had just happened while she wasn’t paying attention. Like a boiling pot, it had refused to bubble as she kept poking and prodding at herself, trying to make _ anything _ happen-- and then her own laughter had startled and alerted her like the sudden whistle of a kettle. 

“You know,” she says, “I’ve heard that there’s such a thing as parties where everyone is a friend or at least an acquaintance instead of a stranger, the music is played at a reasonable volume, and the drinks are alright.” 

Jon snorts doubtfully. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” 

Another amused sound escapes her, which lets her know that yes, now that she’s been informed by herself, she _ does _ think that she feels some amusement curling warmly in her chest. It’s like lightning preceding thunder. Sound first, and  _ then _ she gets to notice the feeling. 

He really is kind of funny though. He’d been so nervous and awkward at first, but now he’s acting all huffy and cranky, like a cantankerous grandpa. How old is he? Twenty? Nineteen? That’s fantastic. 

“And-- wait just a moment,” Jon says. “Why are  _ you  _ in here? You saw that the room was dark and empty, and yet you closed the door behind you.” 

_ I wanted a smoke, _ she could say. Or maybe  _ I’m here for an illicit rendezvous, quickly, you have to get out before my lover arrives or else they’ll assault you in a fit of jealous rage.  _

But suddenly, she mostly just wants to say something that’ll make him relax even more, until he’s as comfortable around her as the cat he’d found to hide away from all of the noise with. 

“I’m not much of a party guy either,” she admits. “Or at least, not this sort of party. It really is awful here, isn’t it?” 

“While I was searching for a private place I walked in on someone having--  _ intercourse,” _ he confides in her, sounding a bit like he’s confessing to witnessing a murder or a drug deal. 

Another little laugh bursts out of her, like a bird flying out of a bush. “Oh my god, they’ve been going at it that long? Good for them, I guess.” 

“Why wouldn’t they lock the door?” he asks plaintively. “Or block it off in some way?” 

“Maybe that’s what they’re into,” she says wisely. “Being walked in on.” 

Oh never mind,  _ that’s _ a horrified look that he shoots her. She grins at him unrepentantly. 

“That is the most horrid thing I’ve ever heard,” he says. She can very clearly picture a scandalized duchess dowager saying those exact words with that exact intonation. God, he  _ has _ to be exaggerating that accent, right? Just a bit. 

“Is it really?” 

“Well-- tonight, at least.” 

She hums. She scritches Hermit underneath her chin. Hermit stretches luxuriously, and Georgie watches Jon’s expression melt with adoration at that. He looks like he’s an inch away from outright cooing at it. 

_ Cute, _ she thinks again. The thought is beginning to become incessant, laying down roots in her mind. 

“Hope you don’t mind me crashing your hiding spot,” she says in a fit of self defense, so that Jon will remember that she’s here and won’t start cooing, because she’s not sure that she can handle seeing something that adorable right now. 

“I-- oh n--no, it’s alright. It’s not  _ my _ room. You can stay here for as long as you like.” 

“Very generous of you,” she says, and he narrows his eyes at her again, in that ‘are you making fun of me’ way. Which-- well, she is, but not in a  _ mean  _ sort of way. He’s supposed to poke back at her a bit. A back and forth. Bantering. 

Flirting. 

_ Oh. _ She notices, all at once, that her face feels hot. That the tips of her fingers are tingling just a bit, something fluttering in her stomach-- and that’s when what she’s feeling finally registers, several minutes after she should’ve noticed it. Lightning, and  _ then  _ thunder. 

Jon’s a really cute guy. She wants to talk to him longer. She wants to see him coo at the cat. She wants to kiss-- 

“Yes, well,” Jon says, stilted, and Georgie realizes that she’s just been staring at him for a while now. “It really would be too much to condemn someone to _ that.”  _

She blinks, trying to get her brain back into the present. The party, he means. 

“Cruel and unusual punishment,” she agrees, and he gives her a hesitant smile. He’s so tentative, treating this casual little conversation with no serious stakes like it’s something delicate that he might fumble and fuck up. He’d said that he’d come here because it’s what you're supposed to do when you’re in college. You’re ‘supposed’ to do a  _ lot  _ of things at college. Get piercings, tattoos, black out drunk, arrested, go skinny dipping, streaking, get into a dozen ill advised stupid flings. Georgie hasn’t even done half of those since she got here. She thinks that maybe he didn’t just come here for the weak justification that he was _ supposed _ to do it. It just made a good excuse. 

He hadn’t even thought to ask why Georgie had come here, despite admitting that she isn’t one much for parties either. ‘Because I could actively feel my will to live draining out of me with each passing moment and I desperately needed an excuse’ would probably be a bit too intense of a confession. That’s probably not why he’s here. She wants to push. But if she does, he might push back. 

She’d had a lot of _ weird _ conversations with people, once she’d stopped being catatonic. Alex hadn’t been her only friend, before. There had been others. Everyone’s gone now, though. She’d been gone for months after an inexplicable mental break, and when she came back she was _ different.  _ Strange to talk to. She didn’t have any fear holding her back from being too honest, too blunt. She insulted people by not cushioning or holding back remarks, or made them uncomfortable with what she casually revealed about herself. 

It’s not that she’d lost her ability for tact, for common sense. It’s just that she’d been letting fear steer her more than she’d thought. She’d been letting it control every single conversation for her. It was only afterwards, when she’d realized one day that everyone that was left had stopped calling her and inviting her to things, that she decided that she had to change. Rearrange things in her mental landscape, what she used to make her decisions. She’s been changed. She can’t rely on the old tools and tricks that she used to use, because they aren’t there any longer. She can’t hold herself back from calling Shellie a bitch because she’s afraid of how she’ll react any longer. Now, she has to hold herself back from calling Shellie a bitch because… logic, or compassion, or strict rules, or whatever tool she can reach out and use. 

Her old anxieties probably would’ve reached out to her now, found a way to convince her not to push and pry at Jon. Hell, she might not even be talking to him at all, if she still had her fear. Maybe she would’ve bailed by now, leaving to go and find someone she already knows, instead of fumbling her way through a conversation with a stranger, a cute boy that she wants to surprise another one of those wonderful little laughs out of. But she doesn’t have her fear, so instead she reaches out for another of the tools, one of the ones that she still has access to. 

Logic. Okay, what happens if she just outright asks Jon why he came to the party? He probably wouldn’t be comfortable. He’s already answered that question once, and her asking it again is as good as saying that she thinks he’s lying. He is, she’s pretty sure, but still. It makes people feel uncomfortable when they’re confronted like that. If he’s lying to her about it, then that means that he doesn’t want to tell her. And why would he? She’s a stranger. _ She _ doesn’t want to tell  _ him _ why _ she’s _ here. Not because she’s afraid of how he’d react, but because she’s  _ tired _ of it, tired of the way people get when she admits to her own apathy, the paralyzing looming knowledge of her own inevitable death. She just wants to talk to him. And keep talking to him. 

\--Ah. 

“You want to meet people,” she says, snapping her fingers with realization, pointing her finger at him. 

He startles. “W--what?” 

“You sort of already said it, right? Parties are about loud music, awful drinks, and meeting new people. You don’t seem to like the first two, so you must’ve come for the third, right?” 

“I-- I don’t--” Jon bites himself off, takes a deep breath, and she watches him visibly draw himself up, pulling up some sort of scowling facade that’s turning his nose up at her. He sort of reminds her of a forbidding grandmother for a moment. “I don’t see what I’ve done to give you the impression that I like the third thing either.” 

There’s a difference between having friends and making them, she doesn’t say.  _ Having _ friends is safe, comfortable, familiar. Who wouldn’t want that? But to do that, you first have to  _ make _ them, which is something entirely different. Meeting new people, strangers, and going through the grueling, awkward process of beginning to befriend them? An absolute nightmare. 

It’s all coming together in her head. He’d come to this party with the hopes of making friends. But then it turned out to be the sort of party with music so loud that you can’t hold a conversation with someone without having to shout everything you say, the sort of party meant for finding someone to spend a single night with instead of finding someone to hang out with. And he’d retreated to the most quiet, isolated place he could find and hid away with the house cat. The whole scenario somehow fits the man sitting in front of her perfectly. 

That’s… adorable. 

“You’re adorable,” she says. 

He blinks. “Excuse me?” 

She rewinds the last moment, what she’d said. Oops. She’s still getting the hang of holding her tongue, of not just blurting out whatever comes into her head because what does she care about the consequences? She slips up sometimes, even now. Well, it’s too late now. She might as well commit to it. 

“I  _ said,” _ she says, and she leans in just ever so slightly, just to emphasise her point, “that you’re adorable, Jon. The absolute cutest.” 

His mouth falls open, stunned. She gives him a moment, wondering what emotion he’s going to settle on. Awkwardness, embarrassment? 

As it turns out, he lands on indignation. She feels like she should’ve predicted that. He does indignation  _ well, _ like a proper, scandalized lady. 

“I-- I-- I’m not  _ adorable,” _ he says, sounding as if she’s accused him of murder and he has to defend his honor. 

“Do you want to debate it?” she asks him. “I bet I’d win.” 

Now he looks like he’s  _ convinced _ that she’s making fun of him, instead of just warily suspecting it. It’s a good thing that Hermit is here, she supposes, or else he might storm out before she can smooth his hackles back down. As it is, the cat is keeping him pinned to the floor as thoroughly as a rock on a sheet of paper. 

“That’s not funny,” he says. 

“Okay, okay,” she says, raising her hands slightly. “Maybe not  _ the  _ cutest, I’ll admit it. Hermit is _ right _ there, after all. But you win second place for sure. Silver medal for you in the cuteness competition.” 

He scoffs at her. Still annoyed, but not outright upset. That’s good. 

Georgie tries to figure out how she’s feeling right now, in this moment. She’s not sure if she has a label to put on what she finds inside of her chest. It’s a sort of… breathless anticipation. Like leaning forward in her seat while watching a movie, because she can just tell that something incredible is about to happen in the next scene, and she doesn’t want to miss a single moment. Like blazing her way through the final level of a game, just narrowly avoiding each hit, excited and paying razor fine attention and  _ engaged.  _

She wants to have him, to get him to go soft and relaxed enough to laugh in front of her again. And she can tell that she’s so, so close. It’s challenging, it’s difficult, but in a way that she knows she can manage if she just tries hard enough. And it’ll be so satisfying when she does. 

“That must make me bronze,” she goes on. “That stings, but I guess that it’s an honor just to be up on the podium.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says dismissively. “Obviously  _ you’re  _ not last place.” 

She grins. “Are you calling me cute, Jon?” 

“That’s not-- I just mean that I’m not as--” 

“Because I’m flattered.  _ Very  _ flattered.” 

He tries to say something, but his stammer has worsened enough that he can’t quite manage it. Flustered, off balance. 

“I’m willing to compromise,” she says mercifully. “We can both share second place together, if you want. Agree to disagree about who’s the cutest one.” 

“You’re--” 

The door opens. A guy stumbles inside, closely followed by-- Trish? 

“What the fuck?” the guy says, and Jon yelps and startles badly enough to send Hermit leaping out of his lap. He makes a bereft, protesting noise, like his infant child has been ripped out of his arms, one mournful hand reaching out towards her, but she skitters away and out of sight. “What are you guys doing in my room!? Get out!” 

Georgie gives a deeply aggrieved, frustrated sigh. She’d relish the anger sparking inside of her, hot and alive, but she’s a bit too annoyed at being interrupted to stop and appreciate having emotions right now. She had been _ getting  _ somewhere. 

“We’re leaving,” she says, getting up. In a fit of inspiration, she grabs Jon’s arm and pulls him along with her out of the room, the guy (the host, presumably) and Trish getting out of their way as they go. She resists the urge to stick her tongue out at them as she does, down the stairs, through the throng of people clogging up the entry hallway like a drunk, sweaty traffic jam. She doesn’t let go of Jon’s arm the whole way. In her defense, he could pull out of her grip if he wanted to, but he doesn’t try it. 

By the time they’ve gotten through the worst of it, stumbling onto the asphalt where they can get a clean, sharp cold mouthful of fresh air without brushing up against at least three strangers at once, she sort of feels like a weary mud and blood streaked soldier dragging her comrade through the trenches, out of gunfire. 

“There,” she says, and lets go of his arm. He doesn’t immediately flee, to her satisfaction. That’s a good sign, right? If a guy doesn’t complain when you sort of abduct him, he has to be at least a little bit into you. “Hope it’s okay that I dragged you with me. I assume that without Hermit, there isn’t really anything worth sticking around for at this place.” 

“I-- yes. Yes, that’s alright. That’s fine. Good lord, we were caught by the  _ host…”  _

“We can never come back here again. Tragic!” 

That makes a little giddy laugh fall out of him, like they’d had attack dogs biting at their heels on their way out, an exciting, harrowing escape. 

“A massive loss,” he agrees. 

“It’s the most tasteful avenue in the whole city,” she says. “What are we going to do without it? Our social lives are ruined.” 

“Decimated,” he says solemnly, but a grin quickly cracks across his expression. She’s feeling sort of triumphant. Experimentally, she starts walking in a direction. Jon automatically moves to walk with her without seeming to think about it, and she smiles. 

She feels _ exactly _ the amount of smug and giddy that she’d used to feel when one of those prickly stray cats finally let her pet them, yep. 

“I suppose it could be worse,” he says. “Really, all we were doing was sitting on his floor and petting his cat. As much can’t be said for the people in the  _ other _ bedroom.” 

She gives a little laugh, only half because she flashes back to the way Jon had said _ intercourse _ earlier, like the word was a dirty, wet sock he had to pick up from the ground. She doesn’t want to say goodbye to him yet. She doesn’t want to call it a night. She wants to keep talking to him. And talking, and talking, and talking. 

She comes up with an idea. 

“Hey,” she says, “since we’ve both been cast out from the coolest place in town, do you want to come back to my place?” 

“Um,” he says, and he suddenly goes wide eyed, stiff and awkward. “I don’t do, um--” 

She waves him off before he can finish the sentence. It’s honestly not what she’d had in mind, as cute as he looks. It’s one of her new rules. No sex on the first date. She still can’t trust her own judgement. She needs to be strict with herself until she gets used to the way she is now. To this new way of functioning, thinking, feeling. 

“Not like that,” she says. “I mean, do you want to come back to my place and watch some Doctor Who? I’ve fallen behind lately.” 

“Oh,” he says, and she watches him slump a bit with embarrassed relief. She likes it when he relaxes around her. She likes it a lot. He gives her a smile that somehow seems shy, hopeful. “Yes, that-- that sounds lovely, Georgie.” 

Silly exaggerated accent or not, she likes the way he says her name. 

“Great,” she says. She’s going to have to come up with a new tenth reason not to lie down and die, but that’s okay, because she thinks she already has an idea for what the replacement should be. Something about asking out a cute boy she found petting the cat at a party while hiding away from everyone else. She doesn’t know  _ when  _ she’ll do it, but it’s on the list now, so. It’s happening. And hey, Jon got to meet someone at the party after all. 

And in the meanwhile? She finally gets to watch some Doctor Who. Win win. 


End file.
